


First Impressions

by Leraiv_Snape



Series: Impressions [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-25 20:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7547045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leraiv_Snape/pseuds/Leraiv_Snape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of character studies from various points of view as a sociopathic detective and an ex-Army doctor meet and form an unparallelled friendship.  "First Impressions" is the first in a series of four stories that will eventually incorporate slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All that you recognize belongs to Mark Gatiss, Stephen Moffat and the BBC. Original credit belongs entirely to Sir Doyle for his wonderful characters.
> 
> A/N: This fic takes place during the first episode of the BBC’s Sherlock, ‘A Study in Pink’. It’s a series of various character reactions to meeting John and Sherlock for the first time, including their reaction to each other. It is the first in a series of four, and so can be read as either friendship or pre-slash, as romance is where the series is ultimately headed. This fic is complete in six chapters, and is already finished. I will be updating once a week. Please enjoy!

John

Irritating. Intriguing.

The laboratory at Bart’s was a study in organized mess – and the architect of said chaos was standing at a microscope when they walked in. A quick glance around at the equipment and various solutions cluttering the counter told John all he cared to know before his gaze shifted to the man who was focused entirely on the slide under his microscope. John studied his profile with an attention to detail that he did not grant machinery or chemicals. He was a doctor and a soldier. Things interested him far less than people.

And the tall man (Chemist? Lab tech?) with a mop of dark curls promised to be an intriguing person. It was there, in the taut set of his shoulders, like a bird ready to take flight, a man of action, momentarily halted to study (perhaps adjust) his course.

His voice, deep and modulated for impatience, cut across their small talk. “Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine.”

“What’s wrong with the land line?”

“I prefer to text.”

“Sorry,” Mike said, though he didn’t much sound it, “it’s in my coat.”

John made a swift decision. He might as well open with courtesies and catch his attention, see what he could read from the other man Mike had brought him there to meet. “Er…here, use mine.” 

Eyes of cool grey-blue-crystal snapped to him and really looked, not the ghosting-over he’d been given a moment ago as a prop, an irrelevant set piece coming in behind Mike. The other man’s sudden intensity made the doctor feel as if he’d abruptly been placed under an x-ray.

John stared back, phone in hand, partially extended, frankly admiring the man in front of him. The planes of this man’s angular face were truly remarkable, a striking study in cheekbones and high ridges, executed by a master. 

The doctor was heterosexual, had always had (and preferred) women in his bed, but he was, first and foremost, an admirer of the human form. And this one possessed an astonishing beauty, for all its maleness.

“Oh…thank you.” The appreciation sounded so genuine, as if the offer of something so small were truly unexpected. Those startling eyes never left John’s face as the taller man approached, apparently ignoring Mike’s introduction, took the phone and started to text, then offhandedly asked: 

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

John could not credit his ears. How on earth…? “Sorry?”

“Which is it? Afghanistan or Iraq?”

He asked this question as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. As if John’s military service were tattooed on his forehead for all to see.

Intriguing, yes. But also unsettling.

“Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you know?”

An (Assistant?) walked in with a cup that wafted coffee aroma under his nose, reminding him that he’d skipped lunch that day. “Ah, Molly, coffee. Thank you.” The tall man did a double take, glancing over her face. “What happened to the lipstick?”

The young woman swallowed, and if John was baffled by the man before him, he had no difficulty interpreting the naked emotion stamped on her face. He knew a moment of pity – it is simply unfair to have so much exposed all at once. “It wasn’t working for me.”

“Really? I thought it was a big improvement,” the (Doctor? Biologist?) said mildly. He walked away from them, swallowing his coffee, apparently completely unaware of the reaction his words were wreaking in their wake. “Your mouth’s too small now.” 

The raw confusion on her features moved John, and he slanted a frown at the man now bent over his microscope again as she said “Okay,” in a small, breathless, voice, and departed.

“How do you feel about the violin?”

This question seemed to be directed at the doctor, but he was baffled as to the sudden left-turn. The conversation had begun to make him feel as if he was on a roller coaster – constantly being jerked in unexpected directions – but without the adrenaline rush.

He watched the door close on Molly, catching Mike’s eye as he turned back. His old friend was clearly expecting him to respond. “Sorry, what?”

“I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end…would that bother you?” The changeable eyes were on him again. “Potential flat mates should know the worst about each other.”

Potential flat mates…ah…Mike must have phoned ahead. John let out a sigh of relief. So the man was a bit abrupt, definitely socially awkward, but in John’s experience, scientists could be like that.

“Oh, you – you told him about me.”

Mike shook his head, smiling, shattering the doctor’s equilibrium immediately. “Not a word.”

“Then who said anything about flat mates?” he asked the slender back. The other man was busy putting on his coat.

“I did. I told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flat mate for. Now here he is, just after lunch, with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn’t a difficult leap.”

John could only stare, unsettled becoming slightly spooked, his brief consideration of the man’s arresting physical appearance submerged by reluctant admiration for the mind that must be under that thick, dark hair. And vexation that this man seemed to live about six sentences ahead in the conversation.

“How did you know about Afghanistan?”

“Got my eye on a nice little place in central London,” the man continued, ignoring the question as he looped his scarf around his neck. “Together, we ought to be able to afford it. We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock. Sorry, got to dash, I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”

John couldn’t help but feel railroaded – and slightly like a pet that had been selected from the store, with no say in whether he was going or not. It was an unusual feeling for the former Captain – not to be taking orders, but to be taking personal ones from a civilian.

So his voice was slightly sharp when he said, “Is that it?” Arrested in his exit, the man turned from the door.

“Is that what?”

“We’ve only just met, and we’re going to look at a flat?”

“Problem?” A small smile, almost a daring one.

John shot Mike an incredulous smile, schooled his face to serious to turn back to the eccentric man. “We don’t know a thing about each other. I don’t know where we’re meeting. I don’t even know your name.”

The man stepped back as if to say _Right_. He gave John a brief once-over and began:

“I know you’re an army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’ve got a brother who’s worried about you, but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him, possibly because he’s an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife, and I know that your therapist thinks that your limp is psychosomatic – quite correctly, I’m afraid. That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?” A small smile as he sidled back towards the door, clearly pleased with himself. He opened it, turned to John almost as an afterthought and said: 

“The name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is two-two-one B Baker street.” He flashed an outrageous wink, bid afternoon to Mike and walked out.

John stared at his old friend. How could Mike expect that he would get on with someone like that? His initial flash of curiosity had been completely buried by irritation for the man’s high-handedness. And raw discomfort at how quickly Sherlock had divined his life. He shifted his cane uncomfortably. His therapist had been insisting that his limp was psychosomatic since his return…

And yet… Riding crop. Mortuary. Life with Sherlock Holmes was bound to be anything but boring. 

“Yeah. He’s always like that,” Mike confirmed to John’s steady glance.

_“Nothing happens to me.”_ If this first meeting was anything to go by, John would not be making that complaint to Ella again any time soon. Despite his reservations, he could feel his heart speed up hopefully at the thought.

So maybe the intrigue wasn’t completely buried.

He knew, with the same surety that had allowed him to choose course after course of action in Afghanistan without looking back, that he would go see the flat at 221B Baker Street tomorrow evening. 

And unless there was something seriously wrong with either the flat or Sherlock Holmes, he would be taking it.


	2. Mrs. Hudson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Hudson meets the boys and makes her own deductions about their compatibility.

Mrs. Hudson

Right.

“Will you be back round with him again later, then?” Mrs. Hudson asked, hovering in the doorway as Sherlock flitted about, boxes piled everywhere and already spilling their strange contents onto the carpet. The kitchen table had surrendered its clean wooden surface to a cluster of glass, and the faint smell of smoke betrayed an experiment in progress, despite the fact that the consulting detective had only been in residence for approximately a quarter of an hour.

As she watched him dart around, she couldn’t contain her faint smile. She owed the dear boy – for solving that disaster of a case and releasing her from her even more disastrous marriage – and she did so want him to have the chance to experience happiness of a more normal variety. Neither Sherlock nor Mycroft had ever given even a scant indication that there were women in their lives, so she had moved on to the next available assumption. 

He would have to be quite remarkable to have attracted Sherlock. Then again, he would have to be quite remarkable to _put up_ with Sherlock. She hoped she would be meeting him today. Especially if Sherlock was planning to move him in this evening.

“Sherlock, dear?”

“Hmmm?”

“Your new man. Are you going to bring him by later?”

“Mmm – ah, yes,” he answered vaguely. “Dr. Watson will be by this evening – I have a few items to take care of this afternoon first.”

A doctor. That was a good turn-up for Sherlock. She’d kept abreast of some of his adventures, and if he had someone caring to come home to who would patch him up, that could only be good.

**********

The man standing back as Sherlock hugged her that evening was shorter than the detective by a full head, compact and slight of stature, and used a cane to support himself through a rather bad limp. She eyed him sympathetically – and curiously. The man seemed to be the steady, quiet, clear-headed sort. Rather…ordinary, by all observable standards. Not the type she’d imagine would put up with Sherlock Holmes’ flights of temporary insanity – nor the type she would have imagined capturing the detective’s attention.

“Mrs. Hudson, Dr. John Watson,” Sherlock introduced them with a slightly proprietary air.

“Hello,” he extended his hand, smiling, and she shook it, instantly warming to him and the kind smile on his gentle face. The man practically exuded patience. Perhaps it was as they always said – opposites attract. This man would be a wonderful influence on Sherlock. He _had_ done well for himself.

“Shall we?” Sherlock said behind them, ushering them in. He bounded up the stairs ahead of them, but she caught the eager look on his face as he stopped at the door, waiting for his partner to reach the top of the stairs, and then pushed through it with a smile, for all the world as if the flat were a gift he was showing off.

Mrs. Hudson saw the way Sherlock’s eyes never moved from the honest, easy face of Dr. Watson as the shorter man surveyed the flat. _Early in the relationship, then,_ she assessed. Either way, it didn’t bother her.

“Well, this could be very nice. Very nice indeed,” the physician was announcing his approval around the corner.

“Yes. Yes, I think so. My thought’s precisely,” Sherlock agreed, contentment on his thin face as he surveyed her second-story flat like a general examining a kingdom for conquering.

“Soon as we get all this rubbish cleaned out—” 

“So I went straight ahead and moved in.”

“Oh…” the men looked at each other, bafflement plain in the air between them, and Mrs. Hudson covered her mouth. There was clearly plenty of navigating to be done here, but something about the two of them, standing in the kitchen door – the doctor’s head tilted back to meet Sherlock’s dark grey gaze as they silently negotiated their space – looked… _right._

_They’ll be all right,_ she thought, feeling a surge of fondness for both of them. Her boys. She and Mrs. Turner could compare notes.

The detective was moving quickly, making a half-hearted attempt to tidy up.

“What do you think, then, Dr. Watson? There’s another bedroom upstairs, if you’ll be needing two bedrooms,” she asked, mostly out of courtesy, but you never knew how people conducted their own business.

The man stared at her, startled. She hoped he didn’t think she minded. It might not have been done openly in her day, but she certainly wasn’t going to hold onto that old nonsense.

“Of course we’ll be needing two bedrooms.”

_Very early,_ she reinforced her original assessment, and gave him a smile.

“Oh, don’t worry; there’s all sorts around here. Mrs. Turner next door has married ones,” she told him confidentially. Watson shot a puzzled glance across the flat at Sherlock, but he was busy at the bookcase, and the doctor simply shook his head. She would have to privately assure him that she didn’t mind at the soonest available opportunity.

Which, given the front page of the _Times_ , might be sooner than she’d hoped.

When the sirens sounded outside, she was unsurprised when a Yard detective thundered up the stairs and into the open flat. As Sherlock asked the Yarder pointed questions, she watched John. There was an air of curious amazement about him as he watched the exchange as he would a tennis match – wishing that he could jump in to play, except that he was lacking a racket and possibly the rules had changed.

No sooner did the door close on the detective inspectors heels than energy surged through Sherlock’s lean frame and he grinned as he leapt, fists clenched in excitement. “Brilliant! Yes!” The smile transformed his face, dissolving the arrogant lines drawn around eyes and mouth, making him gloriously charming. Mrs. Hudson watched the doctor’s dark blue eyes lock on him. He was immediately, completely, arrested by the open, intense expression on the detective’s face, and watched him in fascination as Sherlock jumped about the room, sweeping his coat on.

The calm veneer the detective had worn for Lestrade’s sake had fallen away like the mask it was, revealing the delighted, energetic man that was Sherlock’s truest self, and the doctor couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried. John Watson sat completely captivated. She nodded to herself knowingly. _This_ was what had brought these two together, she’d bet anything on it.

“Ah, four serial suicides and now a note. Ah, it’s Christmas.” He seized his coat, swinging it around his shoulders.

“Mrs Hudson, I’ll be late, might need some food.”

“I’m your landlady dear, not your housekeeper,” she replied firmly. She did adore Sherlock, but she also already knew that the man required strict limits.

“Something cold will do,” he blew right past her objection. “John, have a cup of tea, make yourself at home. Don’t wait up!” 

As she set the kettle on to make the doctor a cup of tea, she heard footsteps, then voices, and then John’s firm voice saying in the hall, “Sorry Mrs. Hudson, I’ll skip the tea. I’m off out.”

“What, both of you?” She couldn’t quite cloak her dismay. She _had_ been looking forward for the chance to get a few details from him with Sherlock out. Lord knew she could ask Sherlock all day and get nothing. Dr. Watson seemed more the opening-up type.

But as Sherlock threw open the door and both men exited – the excited detective and his firm doctor right behind, she smiled.

_Just right._ They wouldn’t be needing that second bedroom for very long. She’d happily stake her herbal soothers on it.


End file.
